India to experiment with fielding positions

India will experiment with different field settings to compensate for their bowling deficiencies at the T20 WC, captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said on Tuesday a day ahead of his team's opening game against Afghanistan.

The 2007 champions failed to defend a formidable 185-run target against Pakistan in a warmup game on Monday with their key bowlers Irfan Pathan, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Zaheer Khan, and Harbhajan Singh going for more than 10 runs an over. India lost the match by five wickets two days after they defeated Sri Lanka by 26 runs with the bowlers led by Pathan doing an excellent job to bowl out the hosts for 120 runs.

"Bowling has always been a bit of a concern. If you compare our batting to our bowling, we find the bowling slightly weaker than the batting," Dhoni told reporters. "We will try different strategies and different field settings, so that you can complement our way of bowling."

India have always relied on part-time bowlers because they usually play with seven batsmen and four full-time bowlers. Dhoni said they could consider a change in the team composition to strengthen the bowling. "We are looking to play with seven batsmen to start up the tournament and that means the part-timers will have to do a really good job," he said.

"Otherwise, as the tournament progresses and if we still find our bowling line is bit too week, we will have to go with six batters and five bowlers." Dhoni also said Yuvraj Singh, who has returned to the team after cancer treatment, looked fit for the shortest version of the game. "He looks fit especially for this format. It's a short format and he is not 100 percent fit for something like test cricket right now. But for this format, he is shaping well."

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